Here are more of Chekhov’s tips on writing from the Nebraska Center for Writers:

My business is to be talented, that is, to be capable of selecting the important moments from the trivial ones. … It’s about time for writers — particularly those who are genuine artists — to recognize that in this world you cannot figure out everything. Just have a writer who the crowds trust be courageous enough and declare that he does not understand everything, and that lone will represent a major contribution to the way people think, a long leap forward.

I still lack a political, religious and philosophical world view — I change it every month — and so I’ll have to limit myself to descriptions of how my heroes love, marry, give birth, die, and how they speak. — To Dmitry Grigorovich, October 9, 1888

One has to write what one sees, what one feels, truthfully, sincerely. I am often asked what it was that I was wanting to say in this or that story. To these questions I never have any answer. There is nothing I want to say. My concern is to write, not to teach! And I can write about anything you like. … Tell me to write about this bottle, and I will give you a story entitled “The Bottle.” Living truthful images generate thought, but thought cannot create an image.